A further two public utility officials in Chifeng City, in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, have been fired over a tap water-pollution incident that made more than 4,000 residents ill last week.

Feng Yuguo was removed from his post as the deputy Party (Communist Party of China, or CPC) chief of Songshan district construction bureau Wednesday, the local government said Thursday.

The CPC district committee also proposed the removal of Feng as the director of the district construction bureau.

Gao Yuliang, a member of the CPC bureau committee and the bureau's deputy director, was similarly punished.

On Tuesday, the CPC Chifeng municipal committee sacked Guo Mingda, Party chief of the municipal construction commission and Yu Xiufeng, another senior Party official of the commission.

More than 4,000 local residents have sought medication for gastrointestinal illnesses after tap water supply in Songshan, Chifeng was contaminated by rainfall on July 23.

The patients complained of fever, diarrhea, stomach aches and vomiting brought about from July 25 on by drinking the tap water.

The contaminated area provides tap water for Chifeng's "new city center", a 17-square kilometer area with a population of 58,000.

(Xinhua News Agency August 7, 2009)